GBSPLAY

NAME

gbsplay - Gameboy sound player

SYNOPSIS

gbsplay [options] gbs-file [start-subsong [stop-subsong] ]

DESCRIPTION

gbsplay emulates the sound hardware of the Nintendo Gameboy. It is able to play the sounds from a Gameboy module dump (.GBS format) over /dev/dsp and other sound drivers.

OPTIONS

-E endian

Set endianness to endian. Valid values are b, l and n for big, little and native endian respectively.

-f fadeout-time

Set fadeout time to fadeout-time seconds. Instead of cutting the subsong off hard, do a soft fadeout. Default value is 3 seconds.

-g subsong-gap

Set subsong gap to subsong-gap seconds. Before playing the next subsong after the subsong timeout, subsong-gap seconds of silence will be played. Default value is 2 seconds.

-h

Display short help and exit.

-H filter

Set output high-pass type to filter. Valid values are dmg (Gameboy Classic), cgb (Gameboy Color) and off (no filter). Default value is dmg.

-l

Enable loop mode. After the last subsong has been played, playback starts again with the first subsong. Default is no loop.

-o plugin

Select sound output plugin plugin. Select list to view a list of all available output plugins. Default value depends on compilation options.

-q

Be quieter, reduce verbosity. Can be applied multiple times. Default verbosity is 3.

-r samplerate

Set the samplerate to samplerate Hz. Default value is 44100Hz.

-R refresh-delay

Set the refresh delay to refresh-delay milliseconds. Larger values will lower CPU usage, but things as subsong changes, fadeouts, reactions to keypresses and the on-screen display will be delayed. Default value is 33 milliseconds.

-t subsong-timeout

Set subsong timeout to subsong-timeout seconds. When a subsong has been played for the given time, the player will skip to the next subsong. A timeout of 0 seconds disables automatic subsong changes. Default value is 120 seconds.

-T silence-timeout

Set silence timeout to silence-timeout seconds. When a subsong contains silence for the given time, the player will skip to the next subsong. Default value is 2 seconds.

	-v		Increase verbosity, print more information. Can be applied multiple times. Default verbosity is 3.
	-V		Display version number and exit.
	-z		Play subsongs in shuffle mode. Every subsong will be played once in random order.
	-Z		Play subsongs in random mode. Like shuffle mode (-z), but a subsong can be played multiple times.
	-1		Mute channel 1 on start.
	-2		Mute channel 2 on start.
	-3		Mute channel 3 on start.
	-4		Mute channel 4 on start.

gbs-file

The sound file to play. Must be in uncompressed .GBS format.

start-subsong

The subsong from the sound file to play first. If not specified, the default song declared in the sound file will be played unless shuffle (-z) or random mode (-Z) are active. An out-of-bounds number will be clipped to the possible range of subsongs.

stop-subsong

gbsplay exits after this subsong has been played. If not specified or out-of-bounds, gbsplay will exit after playing the last subsong, unless in loop mode (-l).

KEYBOARD CONTROL

gbsplay supports basic keyboard control. The following commands are recognized:

	p		Skip to the previous subsong.
	n		Skip to the next subsong.

q or Esc

Quit gbsplay.

	Space		Toggle play/pause.
	1		Mute/unmute channel 1.
	2		Mute/unmute channel 2.
	3		Mute/unmute channel 3.
	4		Mute/unmute channel 4.

OUTPUT PLUGINS

Output plugins are sometimes called plugouts because that’s shorter, so don’t be confused. Not all of the plugins listed here may be available, see ‘gbsplay -o list’.

alsa

Use the ALSA sound driver for sound output.

altmidi

Alternative implementation of the MIDI output plugin (see midi below). Should export more accurate note off events (the length register is taken into account), but generated MIDI files will be more complicated and fine grained and probably not suitable for editing or printing a score.

devdsp

Use the OSS sound driver for sound output via /dev/dsp.

dsound

Use the DirectSound sound driver for sound output on Microsoft Windows.

iodumper

Dump IO calls to the Gameboy sound hardware to stdout. This reduces the verbosity to 0 (see -q) because stdout is used for the dumped data.

	midi		Write a simple MIDI conversion of the song into a separate file per subsong. The files are called gbsplay-%d.mid, where %d is replaced with the subsong number. The files are created in the current working directory and existing files are silently overwritten. Only channels 1 to 3 are converted to MIDI, because channel 4 contains noise data that can’t be converted into MIDI note events. Every GBS channel is exported to a separate MIDI channel. When multiple voices share a channel, they will not be separated in the output. The conversion is rather basic and complicated GBS files using tricks and hacks will not be converted properly.
	nas		Use the NAS sound driver for sound output to a Network Audio Server.
	pulse		Use the Pulseaudio sound driver for sound output.
	sdl		Use SDL sound driver for sound output. On Microsoft Windows, libSDL might use the wasapi audio backend by default which can result in choppy sound. To fix this, set the environment variable SDL_AUDIODRIVER to directsound to select a different libSDL audio backend (or switch to the dsound plugout instead).

stdout

Dump the raw audio stream to stdout. This reduces the verbosity to 0 (see -q) because stdout is used for the dumped data. The raw audio is always stereo (2 channels), 16 bit signed PCM. Sample rate and endianness can be set via -E and -r.

FILES

/etc/gbsplayrc

Default location of the global configuration file.

˜/.gbsplayrc

User configuration file.

BUGS

If you encounter bugs, please report them via https://github.com/mmitch/gbsplay/issues or write to <gbsplay-dev@lists.uguu.de>.

AUTHORS

gbsplay was written by Tobias Diedrich <ranma+gbsplay@tdiedrich.de> (with contributions from others, see README.md).

COPYRIGHT

gbsplay is licensed under GNU GPL v1 or, at your option, any later version.

SEE ALSO

gbsinfo(1), gbsplayrc(5)